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As great as Marner would be, 22yr old players with such high potential don't generally move around much. The payment for him would be tremendous as others have noted, and I honestly can't see it happening.

I like the W. Karlsson idea. I like Hayes as well. I'm not a big Duchene fan, and I'm pretty confident he'll cost way too much to whomever signs him, but I could understand the acquisition and would be provisionally content with it.

Regardless, we need a 2C. Go get one Fletch.

I saw a few folks mention Kadri. I wouldn't mind that either. He's on a pretty reasonable contract for what he brings. I'm not sure he's really 2C good, but he's probably good enough to at least push Patrick to try harder.

I heard the rumour mill was floating Ghost's name around a fair bit. I wouldn't doubt it's an attempt to find the elusive 2C we're talking about here. Not sure if that fuels the convo or not, but it opens up the trade front rather than just FAs.

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I think Nolan Patrick has the upside to be a fantastic player. I'm wondering though if the Flyers were the ideal situation for him to step into. He should have NEVER played in the NHL in his rookie season, especially when he required double hernia surgery and that sapped him of all his strength. He should have gone back to junior for one final season. Instead, he was rushed into the lineup to justify the draft position. This past season wasn't a better season either. We're looking at a kid who was bounced around the lineup by an incompetent coaching staff that had no business coaching the big club. It was CLEAR that Hakstol had lost the room and Hextall failed the young players by leaving him in place for too long. On top of it, Hakstol used a system that didn't utilize the strengths of the players. Usually, a coach tries to fit his system around the players he has, not tries to fit the players to the system. That's a recipe for disaster.

I'm willing to give Patrick one more year. Usually year two is a dreaded sophmore jinx year, but with a new coaching staff in place, you can bet that they've reached out to everyone and that the expectations are clear. I certainly expect a big jump in production from Patrick, especially when you consider that historically, players third and fourth years are usually the years they make the jump. If he's not knocking down at least 60 points next season, then I think you start to look at moving on from Patrick.

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I think Nolan Patrick has the upside to be a fantastic player. I'm wondering though if the Flyers were the ideal situation for him to step into. He should have NEVER played in the NHL in his rookie season, especially when he required double hernia surgery and that sapped him of all his strength. He should have gone back to junior for one final season. Instead, he was rushed into the lineup to justify the draft position. This past season wasn't a better season either. We're looking at a kid who was bounced around the lineup by an incompetent coaching staff that had no business coaching the big club. It was CLEAR that Hakstol had lost the room and Hextall failed the young players by leaving him in place for too long. On top of it, Hakstol used a system that didn't utilize the strengths of the players. Usually, a coach tries to fit his system around the players he has, not tries to fit the players to the system. That's a recipe for disaster.

I'm willing to give Patrick one more year. Usually year two is a dreaded sophmore jinx year, but with a new coaching staff in place, you can bet that they've reached out to everyone and that the expectations are clear. I certainly expect a big jump in production from Patrick, especially when you consider that historically, players third and fourth years are usually the years they make the jump. If he's not knocking down at least 60 points next season, then I think you start to look at moving on from Patrick.

This is a fantastic post.

I agree with everything, but specifically agree most with the idea he came up to the NHL too quickly. If he ultimately fails as a Flyer (even if he goes on to have a good career elsewhere), it will be irony that the legacy of Captain Caution Hextall destroyed the career of his highest overall pick by Inexcusably rushing him to the NHL.

The rest about Hakstol and hopeful prognosis going forward is, I think, spot on as well.

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I agree with everything, but specifically agree most with the idea he came up to the NHL too quickly. If he ultimately fails as a Flyer (even if he goes on to have a good career elsewhere), it will be irony that the legacy of Captain Caution Hextall destroyed the career of his highest overall pick by Inexcusably rushing him to the NHL.

The rest about Hakstol and hopeful prognosis going forward is, I think, spot on as well.

yup, one word that matters when it comes to young players is chemstry because when they have chemstry with the prospects in the minors, it really develops their potential, especially when you bring them up because they know how to play with each other. that's why im saying dont bring any way prospects up, let them develop in the minors, so they have chemstry with one another when the time comes, you can bring all three up on the third or fourth line, the coach doesnt have to figure out where to play them at. familiarity is such an important aspect when it comes to a team sport.

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From Fletch and Flahr's presser yesterday... thought this bit was interesting.

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Sounds like distancing themselves from Talbot.

Any news on the goalie front? Someone to play with Carter?

Fletcher: No. We had some pretty good meetings last week. I think we have a pretty good idea of what we want to accomplish. We’ll see what we can do here.

Is that safe to say you’re willing to move on from the two guys you had here at the end of the season?

Fletcher: That’s not necessarily the case. I think, like anything, you put lists together and you have priorities. You go about it. There’s a lot of teams competing for similar players throughout the league. We have our list and we know how we rate players. We’ll see what we are able to put together.

Flyers are one of the six. Not a ton of depth in the piece, but sums up our path nicely.

I think the Avs will be great next year.

This quote says to me "The Hextall Plan Was Working"

Quote

This is the main reason why the Flyers could emerge as a contender in the coming years — they have a good base from which to start and all sorts of flexibility to improve. What they do this off-season and next will be vital.

I agree with virtually everything you said, except I think Hexy -- as well as most sensible people watching -- expected more out of the 2018-19 roster. The fact they were so bad for most of the season was definitely a black mark on Hexy's tenure.

Don't get me wrong, I really quite liked Hexy. I liked his approach, his vision, his style. I would not have fired him.

That said, the 2018-19 season needed to be better than it was. They had the vet talent in the top six, a supposed norris contender as a franchise dman, the top UFA signing of the summer, and enough up and comers in the Patricks, TKs, Sanheims, and Lindbloms to land on the top of many dark horse contender lists. Sure, they had questionable goaltending, but NHL history is filled with teams who have made playoff noise despite spotty goaltending. A good team finds a way to win.

Is that all Hexy's fault? No.

Hakstol was a train wreck for one, and it's entirely possible our core group of veterans just doesn't have what it takes no matter how many young talented players get tossed into the mix. Oh, and Elliott is nothing more than a back up (and possibly always has been just that...)

Still, the 2018-19 needed to be better than it turned out to be. I really don't think we need to dig much deeper than that. 2018-19 was a big big year for the Hextall plan, and the team spent much of it in the basement. As much as I would have kept Hexy going for at least another season -- with the explicit caveat that he find a new coaching staff -- I also do understand why he was let go despite it all.

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I agree with virtually everything you said, except I think Hexy -- as well as most sensible people watching -- expected more out of the 2018-19 roster. The fact they were so bad for most of the season was definitely a black mark on Hexy's tenure.

Don't get me wrong, I really quite liked Hexy. I liked his approach, his vision, his style. I would not have fired him.

That said, the 2018-19 season needed to be better than it was. They had the vet talent in the top six, a supposed norris contender as a franchise dman, the top UFA signing of the summer, and enough up and comers in the Patricks, TKs, Sanheims, and Lindbloms to land on the top of many dark horse contender lists. Sure, they had questionable goaltending, but NHL history is filled with teams who have made playoff noise despite spotty goaltending. A good team finds a way to win.

Is that all Hexy's fault? No.

Hakstol was a train wreck for one, and it's entirely possible our core group of veterans just doesn't have what it takes no matter how many young talented players get tossed into the mix. Oh, and Elliott is nothing more than a back up (and possibly always has been just that...)

Still, the 2018-19 needed to be better than it turned out to be. I really don't think we need to dig much deeper than that. 2018-19 was a big big year for the Hextall plan, and the team spent much of it in the basement. As much as I would have kept Hexy going for at least another season -- with the explicit caveat that he find a new coaching staff -- I also do understand why he was let go despite it all.

The failure was sticking with the coach. Better coach out of the gate and things are different.

Although, I'm not sure what coach would have been able to deal with the goalie situation. It's admittedly easy for me to criticize Hextall given that I don't know what his options would have been, but Neuvirth nor Elliot should have been a surprise. Stolie really shouldn't have been either.

I think the roster could have competed better, but doing it without a coach or a goalie is difficult. Hextall shoulders at least some blame for both.

I guess I'm just not sure why that would be. Most of the pieces Hexy brought in were set and ready to take a big step forward by 2018-19. Signing JVR in the off season made it seem even more likely Hexy felt this team was ready to make some noise. Yeah, the goalie situation sucked, but I don't know that Hexy was going to wait for Hart honestly. Knowing Hex, he likely felt Hart was still 2-3 years out.

I'm not saying the goal was to win the cup in 2018-19, but I do think last season was penciled in as the year this team had enough pieces in place to become very threatening. It's not just me either. The Flyers were a dark horse favourite by pundits everywhere prior to the season. By all accounts, they should have at the very least been good enough to comfortably get into the playoffs. Instead, they were basement dwellers for 2/3rd of the year.

If we take Hart out of the equation, the 2018-19 and 2019-20 Flyers are almost the same roster really. I think Hexy felt Patrick would step up last season -- he didn't. I think he felt Provo would continue his meteoric trajectory -- he didn't. I think he felt TK would become a major scoring threat -- he didn't. I think he probably figured Sanheim was going to take the next step -- I would say he did actually.

Add Giroux and Couts maintaining their level of play, which they largely did, and the recipe really was there to be a solid threat in 2018-19. The problem is those pieces didn't add up the way they were supposed to.

Now, I'm with you all the way on the coaching problem and the goalie problem. Those were arguably the two biggest issues we had going into last season, and they both reared their ugly heads. 2019-20 with upgrades on both fronts offers at least some amount of hope. I only hope there aren't bigger issues related to core players at hand. That would be a lot harder to fix.

I'm entering 2019-20 with cautious optimism. I would feel better if the team hadn't been the worst team in hockey for much of last season, but the fresh faces in key places do buoy my hopes somewhat.

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@ruxpin
I have zero faith in anyone in the decision making chain in this organization.
I could see nothing of consequence happening or everything happening, I don't feel like this group is going to get whatever they do right. So one or two moves and a coaching change is 3 chances to miss. I almost like their chances throwing things at the wall better than I do the couple of shrewd moves. My impression of the front office is Kramer and Newman making sausage.

Give me Stralman, move Hagg, McDonald and if they decide to move Ghost, it best be for one hell of a good player or package of picks.
As for the kids, I don't think we'll see Frost or Farabee start with the Flyers. Gut feeling is that they're going to get the Giroux treatment via the AHL. Let them dominate down there.

Right. But right now he'd be on your third line. Maybe he becomes Voracek in 2-3 years, and that would be great. Let's remember that the Flyers traded Jeff Carter (admittedly more valuable at the time than Ghost, but that gap is pretty close in the modern NHL) for a young Voracek, with a better NHL pedigree at the time, who projected to the Flyers 2nd line, AND a first (Sean Couturier). The fact is that when it comes to positions of value, Center and Defense >>>>>>>>>&

This quote says to me "The Hextall Plan Was Working"
I think this was always the off-season Hextall was looking towards.
Too bad he was too tough on the corporate suits. Oh, and, also, too, wouldn't fire Hackstol.